ink-in-motion

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I love how all of the Batman villains are like “ah he’s not at the manor, it’s defenseless! and then alfred just racks an AK-47 and is like pull up bitch

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I hate you.

But then I think about you eating alone in the house, light humming in the silence.

And I miss you.

Or miss who you were before my perceived reality was shifted,

- because I grew up and started see things differently.

I don't know what to feel anymore.

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In sixth grade, you step onto a scale as a line forms behind you, a light flickering in the distance.

You can feel every pair of eyes focused on the tiny arrow as it jerks forward, scale moving under your unsteady feet.

The nurse adjusts the weights, jotting down the results like an auctioneer pricing livestock.

You wish you could tear off every item of clothing, ripping them at the seams. Fingers sinking into flesh, pulling the fat off your body until it is just a skeleton.

Just like everyone in the line behind would be when reduced to nothing but bone.

But you can't do anything as the number ticks higher, relentless no matter how much you suck in your breath or promise to eat nothing but scraps the next few days.

Cow, pig. It doesn't matter--you've heard it all.

As you step off, the line shuffles forward, but the number is seared into your flesh like a cattle brand. It burrows into your muscles, embedding its way into the very DNA of your body.

Labeled as fat. Branded as ugly. Marked as unlovable.

INK SPARKS #2 – Marked

✨ “What moment made you aware of your body in a way you couldn’t forget?”

Reblog with your response or tag your own post with #InkSparks to join in.

📚 A daily prompt series from @ink-in-motion: writing through what lingers — memory, growth, and the stories we carry.

[ink-in-motion]

INK SPARKS #2 – Marked

✨ “What moment made you aware of your body in a way you couldn’t forget?”

Reblog with your response or tag your own post with #InkSparks to join in.

📚 A daily prompt series from @ink-in-motion: writing through what lingers — memory, growth, and the stories we carry.

[ink-in-motion]

— m. j. grandone ; Alone

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“You are so brave and quiet I forget you are suffering.”

— Ernest Hemingway

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The Tail Still Wags

!!!! CONTENT WARNING: This piece includes themes of pet loss, death, and grief. It is a personal, emotional reflection written in poetic form. Please take care while reading.

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“Once, I saw a bee drown in honey, and I understood.”

— Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco

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has this been done

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on watching a parent age

i saw somebody say “what if you’re gone and i haven’t become anything yet” and basically that broke me on a random thursday evening

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“Always be a little unexpected.”

— Oscar Wilde

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So, uh… if you’re looking back on your writing and you’re cringing at how bad it is…

You know that’s a good thing, right? That you’ve grown?

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"If you use em dash in your works, it makes them look AI generated. No real human uses em dash."

Imaging thinking actual human writers are Not Real because they use... professional writing in their works.

Imagine thinking millions of people who have been using em dash way before AI becomes a thing are all robots.

REBLOG IF YOU'RE A HUMAN AND YOU USE EM DASH

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a good sailor will always return to the sea

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fanfic writing culture isn’t “oh dang! I wanted to write about this prompt with this character but someone else already wrote it, so now I can’t”.

fanfic writing culture is always “two cakes is better than one. the more the merrier. there can ever be enough fics of this character with this prompt!”

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Persisting

Unyielding. Enduring. Thriving. Withstanding.

These are all words I wanted to use to describe myself, but after I thought about them a little more, after I let them sink into the soft tissue of my brain to see if they embodied the person I am at this moment right now, I realized that none of these are what I was looking for.

So damn, what word does describe me? What type of person am I? If this had been asked a few years ago, I am sure I would have used something else because I was a different person a year ago, at a different stage of my life.

What word explains how I simply exist, taking everything day by day, hour by hour? As the minute and second hand make their circuit around a clock, what describes how I weather boredom, failure, or exhaustion? How I deal with the mundane daily, and the part of me that once wanted grand success and millions is now more content with just... being?

Persisting. I think that’s the word I am looking for.

What Does Persisting Really Mean?

During the weekday, my schedule consists of this:

- Alarm goes off at 6:15 (...and 6:30, 6:40, 6:50)

- Shower and dress by 7:10

- Out the door, wet hair plopped in a towel around 7:10–7:18

- Dread my existence and arrive at work by 7:35

- And then wait for the clock to say 3:50 so I can leave

- At home, I work on graduate homework, planning, and try to squeeze some me-time in from 4:10 to 8:50

- Reluctantly try to sleep, but end up watching random YouTube videos until 12:55

- Repeat... again, again, again.

At some point I blink, and suddenly a few days have passed, and I can't help but think about how my ten-year-old self would be disappointed, feel like I was a failure who never seemed to do anything worthwhile with their life.

Invisible. That's a great word for it.

You know that saying, "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

I wake up. I work. I go to bed. The cycle repeats, unnoticed and unseen—do I exist in any meaningful way?

And isn't that a fucked up thing to think? What is the point in hating myself, in being disappointed in who I am, when I have tried so hard to be where I am now? What makes it worth it?

Maybe nothing... maybe everything?

I think a lot of it has to do with persisting. Maybe the tree doesn’t need someone to hear it to know it made a sound. Maybe I don’t need validation or success to live a life worth living. It seems to be more about finding the joy in the little things that make it matter.

The Small Moments That Make It Worth It

What are the little things that make living, that make persisting easier?

The sound of my cat’s purr vibrating in my head, sinking into the marrow of my bones.

When I find a part in a book that makes me pause, flipping a few pages back to really get the experience again.

Taking my camera to a random park and capturing really close photos of flowers, a sense of peace filling me.

Sending my parents silly little gifts in the mail, watching as the tracking tells me it is going to be delivered soon.

Sleep. God damn, I love sleep.

Gazing at the stars late at night, a blanket pulled over my shoulders and the crickets making music outside.

And so many more little things.

I think it is these small moments that make persisting through the slug of daily life really worth it. These tiny minutes of joy, of time I don't need to think about anything else but what is happening in front of me. I think enduring life itself is pretty damn amazing. It's the power of choosing to stay, to keep going, even with the certainty that I will repeat the same thing the next day.

Is Persisting Enough?

So, what is one word to describe myself? Persisting.

It doesn't mean winning, achieving, or even thriving in life. It means just staying. Just being here. And you know what?

I think for now, that's enough.

(Suck on that, ten-year-old me.)

INK SPARKS #1 - Persisting

✨ “What is one word that describes you?”

Reblog with your response or tag your own post with #InkSparks to join in.

📚 A daily prompt series from @ink-in-motion: writing through what lingers — memory, growth, and the stories we carry.

[ink-in-motion]

INK SPARKS #1 - Persisting

✨ “What is one word that describes you?”

Reblog with your response or tag your own post with #InkSparks to join in.

📚 A daily prompt series from @ink-in-motion: writing through what lingers — memory, growth, and the stories we carry.